


This is How a Heart Breaks

by ES_Rowan



Series: The Fifty Kisses Collection [3]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Fifty Kisses Prompt, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29028321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ES_Rowan/pseuds/ES_Rowan
Summary: Written for the Fifty Kisses Prompt.#3 - A Kiss Goodbye
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Series: The Fifty Kisses Collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126193





	This is How a Heart Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Dragon Age or the characters.  
> I’m just playing with them for a bit – I’ll put them back, mostly unharmed.

At the end of it all, Hawke thought, it all boiled down to one thing:

_ She still loved him. _

Even after everything - the chaos and destruction left in the wake of the Chantry exploding, the bodies strewn across the streets of Kirkwall like refuse, the burning buildings and screams of people being dragged from their homes - she still loved him, the man that caused it all.

As shocked and appalled as she was by his actions, Hawke couldn't help but feel for him and understand why he'd felt so driven to such drastic measures. 

Now, seeing him sitting hunched and pale on the steps leading out of Lowtown, she felt nothing but sympathy and pity for this once proud man; the man who had shared her home, her heart.

He had watched the explosion with a strangely serene expression, but now he sat almost turned in on himself, rambling nonsensically about Justice and the fate of mages; seemingly oblivious to the war he'd started, to the blood on his hands.

Hawke heard his desperation, his fear and anger and underneath it all, above everything else, she heard his longing for freedom and his desire for mages across Thedas to rise up and take their lives back.

But was this way? 

Was this truly how to free mages from the oppression they faced every day of their lives - by one man's actions causing such death, making it appear as though mages would do  _ this _ to get their freedom?

_ No _ , Hawke thought as she looked down at Anders, heart clenching painfully, hands shaking,  _ this was not the way, it will  _ never  _ be the way _ .

Anders turned to her, eyes bright with something nearing delirium and asked one final thing of the woman he loved - something worse than he'd asked her before, something that made her squeeze her eyes tight shut to stop the tears already gathering to spill over her flushed cheeks.

He had no right asking this of her, but could she really deny his request?

Could she turn away from him now, after all they had been through? 

She looked back at the others, almost begging them silently to disagree, to make the decision for her; but all she saw were worried expressions and anger.

Swallowing past the thick lump in her throat, she turned back and nodded imperceptibly. 

She bent, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him, the soft press of her lips a balm to his troubled soul and a final moment of sweetness before the dagger slid between his ribs and he slumped to the cold, unforgiving ground.

_ This is how it ends,  _ Hawke thought,  _ this is how a heart breaks. _

“Goodbye, Anders,” she whispered, her words reaching him as he stepped beyond the Veil and walked to face the Maker.


End file.
